VINCENTI ENTERED THE MAIN SALON OF HIS PALAZZO AND READIED himself. Usually, he did not bother with these types of presentations. After all, Philogen Pharmaceutique employed an extensive marketing and sales department with hundreds of employees. This, however, was something special, something that demanded only his presence, so he’d arranged for a private presentation at his home.
He noticed that the outside advertising agency, headquartered in Milan, seemed to have taken no chances. Four representatives, three females and a male, one a senior vice president, had been dispatched to brief him.
“Damaris Corrigan,” the vice president said in English, introducing herself and her three associates. She was an attractive woman, in her early fifties, dressed in a dark blue, chalk-striped suit.
Off to the side, coffee steamed from a silver urn. He walked over and poured himself a cup.
“We couldn’t help but wonder,” Corrigan said, “is something about to happen?”
He unbuttoned his suit jacket and settled into an upholstered chair. “What do you mean?”
“When we were retained six months ago, you wanted suggestions on marketing a possible HIV cure. We wondered then if Philogen was on the brink of something. Now, with you wanting to see what we have, we thought maybe there’d been a breakthrough.”
He silently congratulated himself. “I think you voiced the operative word.
His guest acknowledged the explanation with a nod, then she paraded to a waiting easel. He shot a glance at one of the women sitting next to him. A shapely brunette, not more than thirty or thirty-five, in a tight-fitting wool skirt. He wondered if she was an account executive or just decoration.
“I’ve done some fascinating reading over the past few weeks,” Corrigan said. “HIV seems to have a split personality, depending on what part of the globe you’re studying.”
“There’s truth to that observation,” he said. “Here, and in places like North America, the disease is reasonably containable. No longer a leading cause of death. People simply live with it. Symptomatic drugs have reduced the mortality rate by more than half. But in Africa and Asia it’s an entirely different story. Worldwide, last year, three million died of HIV.”
“And that’s what we did first,” she said. “Identified our projected market.”
She folded back the blank top sheet on the pad affixed to the easel, revealing a chart.
“These figures represent the latest incidents of worldwide HIV infections.”
REGIONS-NUMBER
North America-1,011,000
Western Europe-988,000
Australia-Pacifica-22,000
Latin America-1,599,000
Sub-Saharan Africa-20,778,000
Caribbean-536,000
Eastern Europe-2,000
Southeast Mediterranean-893,000
Northeast Asia-6,000
Southeast Asia-
Total-37,112,000
“What’s the data source?” Vincenti asked.
“World Health Organization. And this represents the total current market available for any cure.” Corrigan flipped to the next page. “This chart fine-tunes the available market. As you can see, the data shows roughly a quarter of worldwide HIV infections have already resulted in a manifestation of acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Nine million HIV-infected individuals now have full-blown AIDS.”
REGIONS-NUMBER
North America-555,000
Western Europe-320,500
Australia-Pacifica-14,000
Latin America-573,500
Sub-Saharan Africa-6,300,000
Caribbean-160,500
Eastern Europe-10,800
Southeast Mediterranean-15,000
Northeast Asia-17,600
Southeast Asia-
Total-9,306,900
Corrigan flipped to the next chart. “This shows the projections for five years from now. Again, this data came from the World Health Organization.”
REGIONS-ESTIMATE
North America-8,150,000
Western Europe-2,331,000
Australia-Pacifica-45,000
Latin America-8,554,000
Sub-Saharan Africa-33,609,000
Caribbean-6,962,000
Eastern Europe-20,000
Southeast Mediterranean-3,532,000
Northeast Asia-486,000
Southeast Asia-
Total-108,748,000
“Amazing. We could soon have one hundred ten million people infected, worldwide, with HIV. Current statistics indicate that fifty percent of these individuals will eventually develop AIDS. Forty percent of that fifty percent will be dead within two years. Of course, the vast majority of these will be in Africa and Asia.” Corrigan shook her head. “Quite a market, wouldn’t you say?”
Vincenti digested the figures. Using a mean of seventy million HIV cases, even at a conservative five thousand euros per year for treatment, any cure would initially generate three hundred and fifty billion euros. True, once the initial infected population was cured, the market would dwindle. So what? The money would be made. More than anyone could ever spend in a lifetime. Later, there’d surely be new infections and more sales, not the billions the initial campaign would generate, but a continuous windfall nonetheless.
“Our next analysis involved a look at the competition. From what we’ve been able to learn from the WHO, roughly sixteen drugs are now being used globally for the symptomatic treatment of AIDS. There are roughly a dozen players in this game. The sales from your own drugs were just over a billion euros last year.”
Philogen owned patents for six medicines that, when used in conjunction with others, had proven effective in arresting the virus. Though it took, on average, about fifty pills a day, the so-called cocktail therapy was all that really worked. Not a cure, the deluge of medication simply confused the virus, and it was only a matter of time before nature outsmarted the microbiologists. Already, drug-resistant HIV strains had emerged in Asia and China.
“We took a look at the combination treatments,” Corrigan said. “A three-drug regimen costs on average about twenty thousand euros a year. But that form of treatment is basically a Western luxury. It’s nonexistent in Africa and Asia. Philogen donates, at reduced costs, medications to a few of the affected governments, but to treat those
